Distortion
by Capitulate
Summary: Oneshot: Pain. What's in a word? Sakura plans to find out, for her own sake. After all, knowledge had always come easy to her, unlike strength. slight, onesided SasuSaku


After four months of not posting anything and just reading everyone else's work, I decided that I would contribute _something. _So I looked through my docments on my computer, and saw this. I totally forgot I wrote it, but I decided that it had potential so I've posted it.

_Reviews are always appreciated and usually reciprocated._

**Disclaimer: **Melissa does not own Naruto. Just like everyone else on this site.

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The thick book hit the top of her mahogany desk with a bang. Sitting in the stiff wooden chair, she scraped it along the hard floor so she could lean her elbows onto the desktop.

She opened the book and her slender, calloused fingers flipped through the aged yellow pages. What book sat before her? Why, the dictionary of course. Reaching a specific page she used her index finger to scan it, stopping when she found her prize.

Pain.

What's in a word? Sakura was going to find out.

The day they became gennin and were put on the same team, Sasuke told her that she would never understand pain, and he gave her a taste. A small sample. A taste of _his _pain, of his inner turmoil.

_"That day, I was crying."_

He let her know, yet all she could do was ask. She couldn't offer him comfort, she didn't understand. It wasn't her place to console him or try to make it all better. There was nothing she could of said that would fix it.

Sakura didn't get something and that frustrated her. After all knowledge had always come easy to her, unlike strength.

She didn't understand why Naruto was loud and so set on becoming Hokage.

She didn't understand why Sasuke was cold and kept himself distant.

Sakura knew, she just didn't understand. Sakura was on the outside looking in, and at the moment, that thought was pretty _painful. _She knew so much, but understood nothing. _The solitude. _No, Sakura did not understand the feelings inside Naruto and Sasuke.

Sakura may not understand, but that did not mean that she did not _feel_ it.

Pain was a disease on Team Seven, and Sakura had never been vaccinated.

She knew that she had felt pain, because the day Sasuke swatted the plate with the apples she sliced for him in the hospital it hurt. She knew she felt it because the same day when he and Naruto fought on the hospital roof and she almost witnessed them kill both each other and herself, it hurt.

She knew she felt it because the night Sasuke left her alone on a bench with the parting words, _'Thank you'_, it felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest.

From what she _knew_, pain was _supposed _to hurt.

It had never quite hurt _that_ much before, she noted silently. Not even when Naruto came home injured trying to fulfill her selfish wishes to bring her Sasuke-kun home to her, it had hurt an incredible amount, but nothing compared to what Sasuke had done to her that night.

The marks he left would fade with time, but would leave flagrant scars on her soul. Sakura could hide the other scars without any effort, seeing as how they were not nearly as large or disfiguring.

Yes, Sasuke-kun had given her quite the injury.

It hurt just thinking about it.

_Pain _was _supposed _to _hurt_.

From what she knew anyway.

Looking back down at her dictionary Sakura scanned the page, desperate to find salvation within understanding.

_pain/ noun / 1. An unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease or emotional disorder._

Sakura's right hand slammed down on the pages of the book, her left pressed it's self on her stomach as she began laughing.

She laughed, laughed, laughed and laughed, the feeling of bitterness refusing to die.

That is what pain was?

It sounded hallow.

So _wrong_, so _incorrect_. She was even more confused now, than what she had been before.

There is no way that is what pain was. It didn't even _begin_ to describe what the feeling was.

Calming her laughter, she bit her lower lip, tears sliding from her eyes instead. Growling, she swatted the book off the desk and fisted her hands in anger.

Was there any way to understand this horrible feeling? If she understood maybe it would go away. All she wanted was for it to go away, like the big, hairy monster she would complain to her mother about at night when she was small.

Sasuke had told her she would _never _understand.

Sasuke was right.

Just because she did not understand it, most certainly did not mean she did not _feel _it though.

She knew she felt it.

Because it hurt and pain is supposed to hurt.

Sitting there at her mahogany desk she wondered if Sasuke himself understood pain.

No, that wasn't logical.

Sakura was an intellectual young lady. She may not have found understanding, but she did come to realization.

Pain cannot be described in a way people will understand, as there is no way to define such a thing.

It's not just pain though that is left a mystery, happiness is too.

She always thought that Sasuke would make her happy.

Turns out he only wounded her in such a way that it would leave deep, noticeable scars.

She has also realized though, that it is her fault, not his, that she has these scars, because she let what Sasuke did hurt her. It didn't have to, but her devotion and love for him made it so. Sakura knew she couldn't become emotionally indifferent even if she tried. She's far too compassionate.

She would love to stop caring for Sasuke and even Naruto.

Because caring for them hurts.

She cares for Sasuke, so when he betrayed her, Naruto, Kakashi-sensei and the village for revenge it hurt.

She cares for Naruto, so when he comes home beaten, bloody, and bruised after a mission it hurts.

That's when Sakura remembers, that pain is supposed to hurt.

Sakura feels pain.

She doesn't understand.

Sasuke doesn't either.

That day, when he told her she didn't understand pain, he had no idea what he was talking about, did he?

She crys because like when she was a child who scraped her knee while playing, it hurts.

She laughs because for once, she isn't being left behind or standing in the shadow of her teammates. Sakura isn't watching their backs.

They are all together this time. Because no one knows exactly what pain is, then that means nobody can be suffering more than another. No matter what the difference in the situations are.

A skinned knee and a broken heart. They are seen as two completely different things, yet are really exactly the same because they both hurt, and there is no way to describe pain.

And one individual cannot possibly know what hurts to another.

That is why that day, when he told her, all she could do was ask. He told her but it was impossible to feel _his _pain herself, making her come off as oblivious to the emotion. Yes, she must have made it seem like she thought everything was about rainbows and flowers, and that tears never fell.

Sasuke really must be a confused young man, he should learn that he isn't the only one hurting.

Konoha in it's entirety hurt Naruto, Itachi hurt Sasuke, and Sasuke hurt Sakura.

He should also learn that he isn't exempt from the rule that it's not okay to hurt someone, because it isn't, and that is what he did without a second thought for her, his _friend_.

When she does feel pain herself there still isn't any word(s) to describe it.

Because if what she read in that dictionary is what pain is, the she's starting to think that maybe that isn't what she's feeling. What she's feeling is deeper than what those words gave way to.

Sakura doesn't know what or if she understands anything anymore. Not after today because everything is becoming a little too difficult.

Standing up from her desk, she walks over and picks the book up off the floor and places it back onto it's spot on the shelf.

Turning on her heel she looks out her window, wondering if Naruto will survive the mission he set off on yesterday.

_'The sun is shining...'_

And she hates how the world pretends to be beautiful, with it's sunshine and blue skies. She knows now it's all a lie. Except, she decides that she will to keep indulging herself and look at it with the eyes of a child. An innocent, _ignorant _child. Because she knows that if she does she will feel better, so she does just that. Takes the world's beauty for granted and loves it all the while.

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**AN: **It always takes me forever to post a story because I find it rather embarrassing. I always wonder if my readers think that I'm an idiot for writing such things. With that said, I'm curious to know what the readers thought. Yes, I'm aware that I talk a lot. 

Cheers!

**-IWSR-**


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